The story of Alex

"Once upon a time, there was a guy called Alex..." -- as narrated during a town-hall address in 2002 by the then CEO of erstwhile iflex Solutions Ltd - Deepak Ghaisas. I was fortunate enough to shake hands with him, one among the three visionaries who had the foresight and mettle to conceptualize and create a leading core banking product at a time when "products" were considered rare and risky business.

His story has stuck with me ever since. 

So here goes the simple yet great story of Alex...

An old lady owned a nice little garden in her backyard. One day a guy comes and offers to manage her garden. The old lady tells the guy - "Alex tends to my garden every day and keeps it in great shape. I never notice when he comes and goes, but my garden gets all the care and attention". On hearing this the guy leaves.

The next day he calls on the old lady again, once again offering to manage her garden. The old lady gives him the same response - "I am very happy with Alex and need no one else". Every day thereafter, the guy comes and offers his services to the old lady, only to return back with the same response.

One day the old lady gets annoyed and asks the guy in anger - "Why do you come every day and ask me the same question, knowing very well that you will get the same answer?" To this the guy simply says - "I am Alex and I check on you everyday to make sure you are happy with my services in your garden"...

Today we have disruptive technologies, leading methodologies, big ambitions. In trying to make them all work together, we toil hard and go to enormous extremes, but perhaps all that is needed is an Alex inside each one of us.

With Alex, any journey - be it complex transformations or turnkey implementations, will start to become simple, fulfilling, and everlasting.